Fourth straight Dow mark in doubt

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Dow retreated Monday afternoon, pulling back after hitting a record high in the previous session, amid higher oil prices and some jitters ahead of a busy week for economic and earnings news.

The Dow Jones industrial average (down 33.07 to 12,928.91, Charts) lost 0.2 percent with about 30 minutes left in the session. In the morning, the blue-chip leader briefly hit an intraday record and moved close to 13,000 before retreating.

Quick Vote

How important is it for the Dow Jones industrial average to reach the 13,000 milestone?

• It shows the strength of the markets and the economy
• It's just a number
• Not sure

or View results

The broader S&P 500 (down 2.21 to 1,482.14, Charts) index edged lower after ending Friday at a 6-1/2-year high.

The Nasdaq (Charts) composite was little changed after ending the last session at a 6-year high.

The major gauges struggled for direction throughout the session, as investors looked to position themselves after last week's run. The Dow industrials ended last week at an all-time high and the Nasdaq composite and S&P 500 ended the week at more than 6-year highs.

After such a run, investors were tentative Monday, despite the slew of deals news, including Barclays' proposed $91 billion buy of fellow bank ABN Amro.

"It looks like another episode of deal-making Monday," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank. Ablin said that six of the last seven Mondays have seen an upward bias because of deals announced on the day or over the previous weekend.

However, the deals weren't doing much for the market, he said, ahead of all the news due later in the week.

"I think we're going to have some tepid trading as we wait for all sort of economic news and earnings."

Reports on housing, consumer confidence, durable goods orders and GDP growth are on tap.

A number of earnings are also due later in the week, including Amgen (up $0.64 to $62.61, Charts, Fortune 500) and Texas Instruments (down $0.01 to $32.49, Charts, Fortune 500) after the close Monday and AT&T (down $0.13 to $39.74, Charts, Fortune 500) and DuPont (down $0.20 to $49.08, Charts, Fortune 500) Tuesday morning.

The early wave of earnings reports have been better than expected, as is typical, since companies tend to issue conservative forecasts. However, forecasts in the first-quarter were particularly low-key, amid economic uncertainty.

So far, 27 percent of the S&P 500 has reported results. Earnings are currently on track to have risen 5.2 percent from a year ago, according to the latest Thomson Financial estimates.

Monday brought its share of deals news.

Barclays (down $1.58 to $58.42, Charts) said it will buy ABN Amro (down $1.14 to $48.15, Charts) for $91 billion. As part of the deal, ABN would sell its U.S. unit LaSalle Bank to Bank of America for $21 billion in cash. However, ABN said it will hear a counter bid from a group led by Royal Bank of Scotland.

AstraZeneca said it will buy U.S. biotech MedImmune (up $8.64 to $56.65, Charts) in a $15.6 billion all-cash deal. MedImmune shares surged 18 percent and topped the Nasdaq's most-actives list. U.S.-traded shares of AstraZeneca (down $3.20 to $55.84, Charts) slipped 5 percent on bets that the drugmaker was overpaying for MedImmune.

Separately, AstraZeneca said it was ending its partnership with drug developer AtheroGenics (down $0.60 to $3.05, Charts) after a heart disease drug the two companies were developing did not produce desired results in a trial.

Among other movers, Applied Micro Circuits (down $0.78 to $2.75, Charts) slumped 22 percent in unusually active Nasdaq trading after the chipmaker warned that both fiscal fourth-quarter revenue and first-quarter revenue would miss estimates.

Pfizer (down $0.68 to $26.29, Charts, Fortune 500) slipped 2.5 percent after Prudential downgraded the stock, Reuters reported.

Valero Energy (up $2.20 to $68.13, Charts, Fortune 500) also gained on a Goldman Sachs upgrade as part of a broader positive take on the energy sector, Reuters reported.

Market breadth was negative. On the Nasdaq, losers narrowly beat winners on volume of 1.19 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, decliners topped advancers 8 to 7 on volume of 1.69 billion shares.

U.S. light crude oil for June delivery rose $1.78 to settle at $65.89 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

COMEX gold for June delivery fell $1.60 to $694.20 an ounce on reports of violence in oil-exporting Nigeria.

Treasury prices rose, lowering the yield on the 10-year note to 4.65 percent from 4.67 percent late Friday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

In currency trading, the dollar rose versus the euro and inched lower versus the yen.